Phase Two

Modern espionage w/o the jump cuts

Derek Potter

Description:

Bio:

October 17, 1939

Public Bio

Potter began his acting career at the University of British Columbia in his senior year, when a student director recruited him to play the role of Willie Lohman in her thesis production of “Death of a Salesman”. Discovering that he enjoyed the thespian life, Potter began looking for opportunities to use his natural abilities and soon was starring in regional productions of Chekhov, Shakespeare, Robertson Davies, and others. At the age of 25, he took part in a tour of Eastern Europe as Captain Miles Gloriosus in Sondheim’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” During the tour, he was spotted by an agent who convinced him to move to California and take a shot at the big time in television. After appearances on “The Outer Limits” and guest spots on several soap operas, he auditioned for and won the title role in “Rex Stone: Agent of D.A.N.G.E.R.” This role catapulted him suddenly into the public eye. His personification of the suave but strong Rex Stone won him admirers and fans, but little critical acclaim. Since the show’s cancellation, he has appeared regularly as a guest on various prime time dramas and sitcoms, including “Mandy and Me”, “The Repairman”, and a recurring role on the hit series “Our House”. He regularly appears at fan conventions and is rumored to be working on a memoir of his time in the limelight.

Potter’s first wife, childhood sweetheart Jane Simkins, died of lung cancer in 1974, and his brief marriage to starlet Teresa Bonaventure ended amicably after 8 months. His daughter from the first marriage, Amanda Jane Potter, is a well-known visual artist whose work has appeared in galleries from Los Angeles to Prague.

Dossier

Potter was recruited as a courier in 1964 while rehearsing for a theatrical tour of Eastern Europe. His larger-than-life stage persona and charming personal manner gave him easy access to make contacts throughout the tour and he was eventually made a full agent. “Rex Stone: Agent of D.A.N.G.E.R.” was a departure for the intelligence community — using a shot-on-location spy show as cover for actual intelligence operations. At the height of the show’s popularity, near the end of shooting for the second season, his wife Jane was kidnapped by <nemesis>, and Potter took off on his own to rescue her, against direct orders from his handler. Potter blames exposure to toxic chemicals during her captivity for the lung cancer that later claimed her life. Although he returned for the second part of the final season of the show, and participated in the made-for-TV movie, his relationship with the agency has never entirely recovered. Indeed, he might have faded from the game entirely if it weren’t for the fact that his nemesis, <nemesis>, is still at large. In fact, <nemesis> is known to have recently purchased a large canvas by Amanda Jane Potter at an auction in Europe… Derek sees this as a personal message and threat, and will go along with the agency’s requirements, and even the barely-hidden condescension of his younger colleagues, because he thinks he may get another shot at <nemesis> somewhere along the road.
He will be patient for now, but eventually Potter will strike out on his own to neutralize the threat, if necessary.

SUBPLOTS: Obsolete, Nemesis, Dependent (the perceived threat to his daughter)